Cartography and Ritual Observation
by MegaBadBunny
Summary: In all the time that she plotted and worked and strove for a happy ending, Rose realizes, she had planned for all manner of contingencies and failures. She never actually figured out what she would do if she succeeded. (She never actually planned to be happy.) *This version smut-free; find nsfw version on tumblr/teaspoon/AO3*


She never expected to see the Doctor in her universe, in her living room, in her flat. Yet, here he is.

(Here they both are.)

The Doctor is eager to inspect everything the moment they get in from Norway, peeking inside Rose's bedrooms and her bath, opening the refrigerator and cabinet doors, inspecting the light fixtures, overturning the few knickknacks she has accumulated in her time here. His fingers glide over everything; impossibly, Rose has almost forgotten how much he sees with his hands. He listens to her house tour with rapt attention and she can see him filing every detail of her home away.

Rose doesn't keep much food in the cottage, so she orders some takeaway and pretends to eat it while the Doctor tucks in. She's too unsettled to eat properly, for reasons she can't quite explain. She turns on the telly and they watch it for a bit—it's a "documentary" on aliens, naturally—and Rose tries not to think about the weirdness of this situation, the mundane bizarreness or strange normalcy of it all, while she plucks out and eats all of the shrimp in her fried rice. The Doctor keeps up a running commentary on the film's inaccuracies and Rose smiles, remembering how they used to do this on the TARDIS just a few years ago.

It's almost disturbing, how easy it is for Rose to pretend that everything's all right—except it isn't pretend at all, is it? Everything is all right, just not the sort of _all right _she'd imagined, not the kind she'd planned and worked and hoped for. But her dislike of having decisions made on her behalf (yet again) notwithstanding, she can't deny that she ended up with a pretty good deal. A fantastic deal, even; she got everything she wanted, and more besides—the Doctor, with her, and her family and her friends and her home, and the promise of adventures in the TARDIS once more, all in the same universe again. Which, as brilliant as it is, still doesn't answer the question niggling in the background-noise of her consciousness, growing ever-louder by the minute:

_What now?_

For the first time in four years, the next step is completely unknown. It's as if, upon arriving at her destination, someone ripped the guidebook out of Rose's hands and set it on fire right in front of her. There's no longer any map, no itinerary, no plan. And how the fuck is Rose supposed to deal with _that_?

Rose's hands long to fidget, but she forces them still, locks her leg to keep her foot from tapping impatiently. She's doing a magnificent job, she thinks, of looking like a normal person, one who isn't about to vibrate right out of her skin with the utter need to just _get up and complete the next step of the plan already_. Whatever that next step may be.

Glancing sidelong at the Doctor, Rose wonders what, besides factual inaccuracies about aliens, might be going through his head right now. If he feels Rose's gaze heavy on him, he doesn't say, too busy glowering at the images of the Great Pyramid of Giza flashing across the telly because according to the documentary, humans only could have built the Pyramid with the help of aliens, but according to the alien in the room, that's a bunch of hogwash, and _all that business was 100% ancient Egypt, 100% of the time; I didn't offer so much as a tidbit of advice on the construction, only popped by long enough to nab a snack from Khufu's coronation, you can't beat a pomegranate grown in the cradle of the Nile_. At any rate, he doesn't look worried about plans or the future, or indeed, anything that happened fewer than 4500 years ago. Rose wonders if she should snuggle up to him, for the simple comfort of it and also just because she can, just like she used to. She remembers when she would tuck in close on the settee in the TARDIS library under the feeble pretense of being cold; the Doctor would tut at her cold hands and feet and snag her a blanket, toss it over her. But he wouldn't make her move. He'd still wrap an arm around her shoulders, wouldn't budge if she nestled against his side.

(She had always wondered, then, how long the sense of normalcy would last if she had leaned up to press a kiss to his throat or his cheek or his mouth, if she had tried something more. She never found out. She never did try.)

They watch another film after that, and another, and finally, just when Rose is starting to wonder if he won't need sleep to speak of in this body either, the Doctor stretches and lets out a yawn.

"I'm a bit knackered," he announces. "But I suppose a metacrisis-regeneration will do that to you."

After the two of them wash up for the night, there's a brief, awkward question of which bedroom he'll sleep in. But before Rose has to make a decision—put him in the spare room, or offer to share hers? Would offering the spare room make her seem cold and aloof, would offering her room make him feel claustrophobic?—the Doctor opens the door of the guest bed, deciding for her.

"Well," says Rose, only a little awkwardly. But before she can say _Good night_, the Doctor surprises her by reaching out and pulling her in for a kiss.

It's a very short kiss, but Rose's brain still goes fuzzy and she's warm everywhere he touches her, heat blossoming from his mouth, from his fingers on her shoulders, sliding down into her belly. He pulls her in close, her chest against his, and he's so much warmer than before, so warm she can feel the heat of him even through both of their shirts. His lips part in millimeters and she can taste peppermint on his breath, the not-unpleasant reminders of toothpaste mingling with his own oh-so-human traces, working in gentle countermeasure to the softness of his lips, and the peppermint and the hormones and the warmth of him flood her mind like a pleasant buzzing fog. It's a short kiss, yes, but her toes curl anyway and her heart races in her chest. She tells herself that it's probably only because it's been a while since anyone's kissed her quite like this.

(She won't admit that no one's ever kissed her quite like this.)

Afterward, the Doctor pulls her into a hug. A proper hug. Arms wrapping around her body, bringing her toward him like gravity. Holding her snug and tight. Her own arms encircle him before she can even think to stop. It's an automatic process. Touching the Doctor is still so engrained in her system, it's right up there with breathing and blinking.

"Sorry," he exhales into her hair, and he sounds almost out of breath—that's a first. "It's just—I've wanted to do that for ages."

Rose can feel his heart hammering against hers. Fluttering like a creature in a cage. (A cage built for two.)

Should she invite him into her room? Is that what he wants? Is that what _she_ wants? Is this part of the plan, now?

(What do they _do_, now?)

In all the time that she plotted and worked and strove for a happy ending, Rose realizes, she had planned for all manner of contingencies and failures. She never actually figured out what she would do if she succeeded. She never actually planned to be _happy._

"Rose?" asks the Doctor. "Are you all right?"

Rose hesitates. She isn't totally sure of the answer, and even if she was, she doesn't know if she feels levelheaded enough to deliver it right now. But she can see that, despite his casual and placid demeanor all evening, now the Doctor is incredibly tense, concerned, even; she can spot it in the purse of his lips and the furrow of his brow, feel it in the rigidity of his hands on her arms.

Something eases up a little in her shoulders. He's better at hiding it, but he's just as nervous as she is, isn't he? And probably feels just as lost, too.

"This isn't really what either of us had in mind, is it?" Rose realizes aloud.

The Doctor frowns. "What do you mean?"

"I mean...it's not like either of us woke up the other day deciding to come back to this universe. And I can't imagine you planned for your metacrisis-thing to happen."

"That last one's true enough," says the Doctor, scratching his neck uncomfortably. "But, erm. As for the former. I had already made a decision about where I'd end up, regardless of what the other me decided."

"You wanted to come back here?"

"Given the circumstances, yes."

When Rose doesn't reply, just furrows her brow in confusion, the Doctor averts his gaze. "I wasn't so concerned about the specific location," he says, slowly. He swallows hard. "All I knew—all I _know_—is that where you are, that's where I want to be. Knew it from the second I woke up in this body. I just want to be with you."

Rose stares at him, mouth parted in surprise.

"Only—only if that's what you want too," the Doctor stutters, cheeks flushing pink.

"I do," says Rose, a small smile tugging at the corners of her mouth as something goes fluttery in her stomach and warmth suffuses her from head to toe. "Of course I do. But I—it's been a long few years, right? So I might need a minute, to get my thoughts and feelings and everything in order. Okay?"

"Yeah, of course," the Doctor replies quickly. "Naturally. Makes sense. Completely." Suddenly jittery, he steps back, hands fluttering about frantically in search of something to do before depositing themselves firmly in his pockets. "Totally understandable, imminently relatable. _Molto bene_. Hunky-dory. Bleh, not _hunky-dory_, never _hunky-dory_, what a dreadful-sounding phrase, please feel free to erase it from your memory immediately. But of course, take all the time you need, Rose, however long you need, I've got all the time in the world—well, I've got a good sixty years—well, could be fifty, with the way Donna's cholesterol is going, and thanks for that, Donna—but then again, could be longer, depends on how things go with the baby TARDIS and whether anyone or anyplace in this universe has got any Werinian lipid stabilizers—but please, yeah, take whatever time you need, Rose, that's fine by me, absolutely top-notch, spiffy, even—"

"Doctor, wait," blurts out Rose, grabbing the Doctor by the elbow before he can sprint off to goodness-knows-where. "You don't have to swan off."

"I was not," says the Doctor, who looks very much like he may bolt into the next dimension at any second, "going to _swan off_. Or duck off. Or goose off. Or any-other-sort-of-waterfowl-off, for that matter."

"Sure you weren't," Rose teases him, smiling weakly.

"I was merely adhering to my promise of, you know. Being considerate and giving you what you need, and all that."

"Yeah, except I asked for time," says Rose. Her smile deepens. "Not space."

"Right," says the Doctor.

"An important distinction, don't you think?"

Something about him seems to loosen just a little bit. "Very important."

Rose grabs his hand, squeezing it reassuringly, just to make absolutely certain he knows where she stands, and feels immensely relieved when he squeezes her fingers in response. But not half a moment passes before Rose has to stifle a yawn of her own.

"All right, then," she says quietly, almost shyly. "See you tomorrow?"

"Yeah," he says, his voice soft.

"Good night, Doctor."

He beams down at her. "Good night, Rose."

* * *

_Tomorrow_, of course, ends up being something of a loose concept, because _tomorrow_ is full of exciting things like Rose sleeping in (until past noon, somehow), Jackie and Tony bursting into the cottage (because _it's after noon, Rose, you haven't stayed in that late in ages, are you _dead_?_), Tony being so terribly excited to meet the Doctor that he wets himself just a little bit (The Oncoming Storm meets The Oncoming Piddle), and Jackie announcing that it's time for a trip to the shops (they need to buy the Doctor _things_ now that he's _human_ and _here_ and _forever_)_._

"All right, but let's keep it a short trip," Rose tells her mum as the four of them head out the door. "Just for the basics."

"Oh, of course," Jackie replies, waving her hand dismissively. "Only the essentials."

"One hour," Rose says.

"Whatever you say, sweetheart," Jackie calls over her shoulder.

Naturally, one hour becomes two becomes five.

It's about as weird as Rose anticipated, or rather, as weird as Rose would have anticipated, if she'd ever thought of such a thing. She half-expects the Doctor to bound away at any moment, impatient with the quaint little Earth shops and their decidedly terrestrial wares, but he seems content to poke around, to good-naturedly ignore all of Jackie's fashion suggestions, to answer all of Tony's many strange four-year-old's questions. Rose keeps to herself for the most part—it's only sort-of on-purpose, there are all sorts of feelings crawling around under her skin and she isn't sure what to do with them—and she trails behind the rest of the group, hanging back, watching.

Her mum, Tony, the Doctor. In the same universe. In a shop together. Picking out socks and deodorant and hair gel. Years of dimension-hopping and traveling all of time and space have somehow failed to prepare Rose for how very weird this is.

Not bad, of course. But weird. Probably weird for him, too, Rose reminds herself.

"Awful quiet," Jackie remarks at an upscale suit shop, her voice low so that only Rose can hear. She rifles through a clothing rack and pulls out a suit jacket (in blue, not brown; she's cottoned on quickly).

"How d'you mean?" Rose asks.

Tilting her head, Jackie holds the jacket out at arm's length, surveying the garment and the Doctor in the same glance. The jacket's skinny, but not as skinny as he is. "Thought you'd be bouncing off the walls, the both of you," Jackie explains. "That, or tangled up in the bedsheets."

Rose groans. "Oh my god, Mum."

"Don't give me that. I know how it is. Lose the man you love, spend years pining after him, finally find a parallel version of him in an alternate universe. Bound to be some celebratory shagging, isn't there?" Jackie replaces the jacket on the rack and grabs a different one. "Especially when he keeps wearing those tight trousers. You buying what he's selling, or what?"

Rose closes her eyes and prays for mercy. "Mum, I'm pretty sure he can hear us."

Both of them glance across the store to check, but the Doctor seems absorbed in the necktie display, smiling when Tony points to a tie in a shade of nearly-TARDIS-blue.

"Nah," Jackie sniffs. "Even his hearing isn't that good, I reckon."

As soon as she turns away, the Doctor looks up at Rose with a wink.

(Is she imagining things, or did it suddenly get a few degrees warmer in the shop?)

* * *

Days pass and he hasn't kissed her again since that first night. But to be fair, she hasn't kissed him again, either. Rose knows it's only because they're each trying to respect each other's space or personal boundaries or sensitivities or whatever, which is quite frankly silly, given that in their time together before, neither of them seemed to really know what boundaries were, much less how to respect or enforce them.

Well, that isn't quite true, she supposes. There were plenty of boundaries that they never crossed. It just didn't feel so _obvious _before.

Take, for example, nighttime habits. On the TARDIS, each night they weren't assisting some planetside uprising (or stewing in an alien prison for assisting in said planetside uprising), there was a distinct ritual: Rose would plop down on the jumpseat or the library settee or a pallet of cushions on the engine-room floor, reading a book or trashy mag or painting her nails or simply lounging about while the Doctor researched or tinkered or plotted. Rose would often have a snack with her as well, which the Doctor would insist he wasn't interested in, but would ultimately eat half of. Lulled into relaxation by the TARDIS' gentle hum, Rose would eventually doze off, at which time the Doctor would quietly rouse her and remind her to go to bed. After a bout of protesting that she wasn't really _that _tired (punctuated with a deep and satisfying yawn that made the Doctor raise an eyebrow in amusement), Rose would then sleepily stumble-shuffle down to the hall to her room, scrub her face and brush her teeth, and go to bed. Neither of them would see the other until the morning (or sometimes the very early morning, on days where the Doctor excitedly burst into her room without warning and subsequently had a pillow chucked at his head), and that was it. That was the ritual, with all of its implicit steps and rules and boundaries. Hands could be held, food could be shared, cuddles could be had, but certain things were not discussed, other certain things were overlooked, and each night Rose went to bed alone. It didn't need to be spoken or thought about; it just fell into place, a river following its own daily flow. It's much the same, now, except there's no hand-holding and no cuddling and no touching at all, just daily business, time together in the evenings, and then separate beds in separate rooms. This is the new ritual, it seems; this is the new plan.

This explains how a whole week passes before Rose decides she has to do something about the Doctor's nightmares.

Wrenched awake by the sounds of shouting (again, same as the previous six nights), Rose waits just long enough for her heart to stop pounding before she throws off her duvet and pads down the hall, to the spare room where the Doctor sleeps. She presses her ear to the door, listening for any additional signs of agitation, and only spares half a thought for boundaries when he cries out again in the dark and suddenly she's pushing the door open and climbing into the bed, time and space and rules be damned. Slipping beneath the bedclothes, Rose snuggles up behind the Doctor as he hyperventilates in his sleep, snaking a hand over his stomach and ribs and chest, pulling them both close. He awakens with a jolt and a gasp, grabbing Rose's hand with a grip like a vice.

Rose freezes, feeling the Doctor tense to stone beneath her hand and arm. She wonders if he's angry at her, if he's embarrassed, if she did the wrong thing, if she should have waited to come up with a better plan.

"Rose?" asks the Doctor quietly, his voice rough.

"Yeah, Doctor," she replies in a whisper. "I'm here."

A few moments pass in thick silence before the Doctor relaxes, sinking back down into the mattress. He loosens his death-grip on Rose's hand, but doesn't let go entirely; instead he tugs, just a little, until Rose snuggles in closer, cushioning herself to him completely and eliminating even the thought of space between them. Her cheek pressed against his shoulderblades, her chest to his spine, Rose can feel the precise moment he slips back into sleep, his breaths expanding and evening out into liquid slow smoothness.

He doesn't move her hand from his chest, and it's a long time before he lets her hand go.

* * *

Probably they should just start going to bed together, but this all becomes part of the new ritual—go about their daily business (together), stay up late (together), wash up (at the same time), go to bed (separate beds, in separate rooms), awaken at the sound of nightmares ripping the calm night air (from down the hall), climb into his bed and go to sleep (next to him), wake up (alone). It's another rule they both follow; the Doctor may need more sleep now, but he still needs less sleep than Rose does, overall, so she isn't too surprised that each morning she awakes in it, his bed is empty. Until one morning it isn't.

Honey-warm light drips in lazily through the gap between drapes and Rose realizes, her eyes slowly sliding open, that for once, she isn't entangled in a mess of bedsheets, but rather, she seems to be intertwined with rather a solid fellow-human-shaped thing. One may even go so far as to say that she is, in fact, tangled up in the limbs of a fellow human. Probably she should slip out before he wakes, do what she can to preserve this boundary she's drawn, but she hesitates, her breath warm and trapped between her face and the Doctor's chest. Her legs are twined with his and her arms are wrapped around his torso and one hand, the cheeky little thing, has snuck up the back of his sleep-shirt, so her palm is pressed flat against warm, pliant skin.

It's nice, all cuddled and close like this, pressed together in their blanket-cocoon. It's very nice. But Rose suspects it's breaking the rules; she asked for time, so that means she's got no right to be touching him now, like this. Besides, there's no indication that he's interested in anything beyond hugging, or holding hands, or the occasional wayward kiss. He could very well be totally asexual, for all Rose knows. And if that's the case, she doesn't want him to feel pushed, or pressured. So she pulls her hand down, hoping that a slow, gentle motion won't disturb him, but that's almost worse than if she'd just whipped her hand out straightaway, because now it probably feels like she's stroking him, which, not that she minds, but what if he does? Nevermind that when she glances down (oh, that's a mistake) she can see that his shirt has ridden up in the night to expose an entire agonizing expanse of rarely-before-seen skin, stretched thin over his hipbone and smooth over his stomach and smattered with a sparse scattering of hair leading southward, and warmth blossoms in Rose's belly at the thought of her fingertips tracing a line down, down, down, over his flank and his hip and straight to his—

His breathing has gone shallow. He's awake now. With Rose's face pressed to his chest, her lips right over his heart, and her hand still half up his shirt.

Fuck.

"Sorry," Rose whispers anyway, because she feels like she should. She shifts in a halfhearted attempt to extricate herself from the Doctor. "I'm sorry, I just woke up like this—I didn't mean to—"

"No, no, you're fine," the Doctor stutters. "I'm sorry if I made you uncomfortable."

Rose laughs. "I was afraid I was making _you _uncomfortable."

"Well, I appreciate the consideration, but I don't think that's something you need to worry about."

Brow pinched in confusion, Rose shifts in the bed, extricating herself from the Doctor just enough that she can scoot up to his eye level. "Really?" she says.

He nods. "Really."

"Oh," says Rose, suddenly breathless, thinking of the Doctor's wink in the shop the other day. Her hand has stilled on his lower back, near the waistband of his pyjama-bottoms and she can't decide if she should keep moving away or if she should slip a finger beneath the elastic and see what happens next, sod the rules.

"I'm not in any particular rush," the Doctor says, as if he can hear what she's thinking. Or maybe it's just that evident on her face. "I said I'd give you time, and I meant it. For whatever you need."

Rose smiles at him. "You know just what to say to a girl, don't you?"

"Well, it helps to have one buzzing about in your DNA."

Rose abandons his waistband in favor of fisting her hand in the back of his shirt, squeezing him in a hug as she buries her face against his chest.

"Thank you," she says.

He doesn't say anything, but hugs her tightly in reply.

* * *

It's Tony's birthday party—hard to believe he's five years old, now, feels like just yesterday that Rose was visiting him and her mum in the maternity ward and marveling over the downy-softness of his sweet little baby head—and he has decided, with all the solemnity a small child can muster, that he wants a proper garden party, something fancy and grown-up, all suits and ties and dresses and pumps. (Rose has a sneaking suspicion about the correlation of this interest in suits and the sudden arrival of the Doctor in this universe; she keeps it to herself, but can't hide her smile when she asks Tony what he'd like for his birthday, and his immediate response includes a pair of his own red Chucks.) Of course, once the day arrives, after the cake and biscuits and presents and fancy-proper-adult-party have worn out their novelty, Tony decides he wants to play a game of hide-and-go-seek. And naturally, he starts by tagging the biggest child present.

"You're it!" he shouts, slapping the Doctor on the leg before he and the other children run off laughing and screaming.

The Doctor glances up at Rose in question, a half-eaten treat in one hand. "I'm what?" he asks incredulously around a mouthful of biscuit.

"You're _it_," Rose laughs. When the Doctor just raises an eyebrow, confused, Rose laughs even more. "You know. You're the one that finds all the children hiding. Haven't you ever played hide-and-go-seek before?"

"Well, of course I have, but it's called different things in different places, isn't it? Not to mention it's been several centuries and just a few planets since then."

"At least you look good for your age," Rose teases.

"I do, don't I?"

"Oh, yeah. Barely have any wrinkles or grey hair or anything."

The Doctor mock-glowers at her. "Rose Tyler. I most assuredly do not have any 'wrinkles, or grey hair, or anything' anywhere on my person."

"What about the freckles?"

"Those are hardly indicative of old age. And besides, everyone knows freckles are charming. Like a bunch of little kisses from the sun, just kissing you all over."

"Has the sun been kissing you all over, then?" asks Rose, her tongue peeking out playfully between her teeth. "Should I be jealous?"

The Doctor's eyebrows pique with surprise as Rose registers the implications of what she just said. She begs herself not to blush.

"Just to clarify: for this particular hypothetical, are you asking if you should be jealous of me," the Doctor asks slowly, a grin playing across his lips—and a smug grin, at that!—"or if you should be jealous of the sun?"

Huh. It's been a little while, but Rose is fairly certain she's being flirted-with.

"You're a smart lad," she says, grabbing the biscuit out of his hand. "You'll figure it out," she tells him, offering her own smug grin as she eats her stolen treat.

"Mr. Doctor!" shouts Tony from across the garden, drawing Rose and the Doctor's attention to where he has decided to hide in a very obvious spot. "Come find us!"

Turning back to Rose, the Doctor clears his throat. "So I should, erm," he says, gesturing over his shoulder toward where all the children ran off, and have the tips of his ears gone pink? "Probably go put the _seek _in _hide-and-go-seek_, right?"

"Right," Rose says. "They're not gonna find themselves, after all."

"Well, it's a good thing they've got me, then, isn't it?"

"A very good thing," says Rose, smiling.

The Doctor beams at her for just a second before darting off in search of all the children, pretending to carefully examine every nook and cranny in the garden, even those that children couldn't possibly ever hide in, ignoring the titters of laughter that float his way from all of the poorly-hiding five-and-six-year-olds.

(He catches Rose watching him a few moments later and shoots her another wink across the garden. Cheeky bastard.)

An hour or so later, as the sun is setting and the sky darkening, the party has begun to wind down, and the staff has begun cleaning the mess away. (It still feels surreal, _the staff_, and the mansion and the money and the not-having-to-worry-about-every-penny, but it's a good sort of surreal after twenty years of scraping by, and the staff are _very _well paid.) As Jackie and Pete start the goodbye negotiations with other sets of attending parents, Rose sets off in search of Tony and the Doctor, to lure them back to the mansion with the promise of dinner. She pokes around the poolside and the trees and the flowerbed, and has just come round the old shed when something seizes her by the shoulder and tries to _pull_.

With a blink Rose's UNIT-honed instincts take over and she grabs her assailant's hand and arm and lunges to the ground, yanking him bodily over her shoulder. He hits the grass in front of her with a solid _thwack _and Rose springs back, hands held defensively between her and the Doctor, just in case he—

Oh. Ah. _The Doctor_.

"What the hell was that?" Rose demands.

"What the hell was _that_?" he hisses back at her, staring up at her with wide eyes.

"Sorry, sorry," Rose splutters. "Are you—"

She doesn't have a chance to say _Okay _because the Doctor has already scrambled up from the ground to grab her once again (by the hand, from the front, this time, where she can see him coming) and he's pulling her up to the shed with him, throwing open the doors so he can draw them both inside. It's a tight squeeze, the two of them in there with all the old tools and tarps and equipment, but the Doctor closes the doors behind them anyway. Rose starts to ask what on earth's gotten into him but the Doctor cuts her off with a finger held to his lips.

"Rose?" asks Tony's voice, a few meters off to their right somewhere. "Mr. Doctor?"

Rose rolls her eyes. She opens her mouth to say that playtime is over now, ta, but before she can say anything, the Doctor switches his hand from his mouth to hers, putting his finger to her lips and stoppering her words. Normally, Rose might bat him away or grimace in irritation at him hushing her up like this, but right now, with these invisible lines drawn between them, heightening every touch to something near-electric, all Rose can think about is his finger against her mouth and his other hand still grasping hers. And as close as they're standing, Rose notices (just like she used to back then) just how good the Doctor smells. It isn't quite the same as before; there's the slightest tang of sweat that never used to be there, but not in a bad way. He still smells like him, and he still smells good. (_Christ_, he smells good.)

The pitter-patter of little feet in the grass nearby isn't quite enough to pull Rose out of her thoughts, though she knows it means Tony is close, and therefore close to finding them. But even if the stakes are so different now (no physical danger here, not unless the Doctor decides to surprise-attack her again), she can't help but recall all the other times like this, the two of them holding close in a dangerous situation, _before_. Rose thinks of hiding from palace guards and harrowing space station escapes and prison breaks with held hands and held breaths and pounding hearts and god, she wants to kiss the Doctor so badly, she really, really does. So maybe she should, Rose thinks as the Doctor's gaze drops from her eyes to her mouth, where his finger rests. Maybe she should just pull his hand away and push up onto the balls of her feet and press her lips against his and kiss him. Maybe it doesn't matter that they still haven't properly talked yet. Maybe it doesn't matter that this dirty dingy old shed is possibly the least romantic setting she could have chosen. Maybe she should snog the everloving daylights out of him regardless. Maybe—

"Rose," says the Doctor, his voice low, his eyes locked on hers. He leans forward, and Rose's pulse races in her throat as his lips brush against her ear.

"Run for your life," he whispers.

"Found you!" Tony shrieks, tossing open the shed doors. Shouting in mock-fear, the Doctor cinches his grasp on Rose's hand and yanks her out of the shed before Tony can tag either one of them, pulling her along in a run. Rose stumbles at first, taken by surprise, not to mention that she's still wearing her pumps. But the Doctor is laughing like a madman, pulling her along as he sprints with seemingly no effort whatsoever, and it feels just utterly _glorious _to be running again after weeks without and soon Rose is kicking off her pumps to better keep up with him, relishing the stretch and burn in her lungs and calves and thighs. Tony giggles and yells behind them and the Doctor laughs and whoops next to her and he's still clutching her hand and the wind whips her hair and air expands her lungs and happiness swells in her chest and spreads to her head until she feels giddy with the rush of it and it's been weeks since Rose grinned this hard or felt this good, it's been months, it's been years.

"Run for your life!" the Doctor shouts, and Rose laughs.

* * *

Rose may not have foreseen the Doctor returning to this universe with her, and thus may not have been able to plan for such an event, but some things still just make sense and fall into place naturally, and the Doctor working with UNIT is one such thing. (Working _with_, mind, not _for_; it's an important distinction, he insists, and Rose rolls her eyes but plays along.) Thus it's in the breakroom for the Applied Sciences department that Rose finds the Doctor late one night, dozing on the couch after a long day of research and alien negotiations.

Biting her lip, Rose watches him, taking a moment to appreciate this rare unguarded view. The Doctor has always looked youthful with this face, but right now, he looks young, downright vulnerable, head bowed and specs slipping down his nose and lips parted ever so slightly as he sleeps. Pale blue light from the breakroom telly bathes his face in ghostly hues, reflecting in his glasses, but it doesn't seem to bother him. Something warm swells almost uncomfortably in Rose's chest; this may not be exactly what she was working for all these years, but damn it, he's wonderful, and he's beautiful, and he's here. With her. The enormity of such a massive thought in such a quiet moment is enough to make her head spin.

Biting her lip, Rose checks the clock. It's nearly midnight. She's more than ready to go home, but she sort of hates to disturb the Doctor right now. There are a few more things she can do, she decides, before she rouses him and they go home. Let him sleep for a few minutes longer, she thinks.

Rose has just turned to leave the breakroom when his hand reaches out to wrap around hers.

"'Lo," murmurs the Doctor, his voice thick with sleep. "Time to head out?"

Rose smiles. "In a minute. You can close your eyes again."

"Nah, I'm not tired," says the Doctor, sitting up with a great yawn.

Rose piques an eyebrow in suspicion, her smile deepening. It is _immensely _gratifying to be on the opposite end of this conversation for once.

"…maybe I'm a little bit tired," the Doctor admits.

"Just a little bit," Rose teases.

"Only the littlest of bits," says the Doctor, yawning again. With his free hand he reaches up beneath his specs, rubbing at his eyes. "Just give me a moment and I'll be good to go. Yeah?"

"All right," says Rose, moving to leave.

He still hasn't let go of her.

"Did you want me to wait?" Rose asks.

"Only if you like," he says casually—a little _too_ casually, Rose thinks—so she nods, plunking down in the break room's old comfy armchair, her fingers still twined with the Doctor's. While they're waiting, Rose figures she might as well watch some telly, but whatever the Doctor's got playing looks dreadfully boring, not to mention so quiet she can barely hear it. So Rose reaches for the remote, only for the Doctor to pull it away at the last second.

Rose's lips twitch. "Do you mind?" she asks.

"Do I mind what?" he asks, eyes trained forward on the telly.

"Do you mind if I change the channel?"

The Doctor shrugs. "Have at it."

Maybe it was a misunderstanding, Rose reasons. He was asleep just a moment ago, after all. Probably he's just not thinking. She reaches for the remote again.

He pulls it out of her reach again.

Rose's eyes narrow. Her fingers drum on her thigh. _Tap-tap-tap_.

(Is he messing with her?)

She pretends to settle back in the chair, wriggling her bum comfortably into the cushions. He places the remote on the sofa arm between them. He rests his hand mere centimeters away. After a moment, Rose can tell he's relaxed a little, sees the tension easing from his arm and neck.

After another moment, Rose pounces.

She dives across the furniture and naturally he's too quick for her once again, snatching up the remote just as Rose's fingertips glance against it.

(He _is_ messing with her.)

(This, of course, means war.)

Rose pushes up on her knees and reaches one arm out as far as it will go, holding on first to the chair-arm and then the Doctor's shoulder for balance, and he holds the remote just out of reach. His arms are longer than hers and he knows it and he's using it to his advantage, the _bastard_. He just sits there with a slowly-spreading smug grin on his face, pretending to watch the telly even with Rose's arm waving madly in front of his face. With every swipe of her hand, he just holds the remote further and further away, until his arm is fully extended and Rose is practically falling out of her chair. And when Rose jumps up, thinking she'll just catch him from the other side, he switches hands, chuckling quietly to himself.

The urge to laugh bubbles up in Rose's gut, but she pushes it down. She doesn't have time for laughter. She only has time for vengeance.

With a quiet _hmmph!_ she sits back down, trapping the Doctor between her body and the sofa-arm. The Doctor opens his mouth to protest and Rose takes full advantage of his tiny slip in concentration, throwing one leg over his lap in a deep lunge while her hand strains toward her prize.

Close—! She can practically feel her fingernails scraping the plastic casing, she's so close—

—until the Doctor's free hand grabs her by the waist and pulls her back, _hard_.

Rose can't help laughing now, and he's laughing too, both at her and with her, while she struggles against him, pushing at him with her chest pressed into his shoulder and thigh slung across his lap. (Damn, but he's stronger than he looks; of course, so is she, but she has no desire to prove herself by harming him. The other day was a close enough call.) Writhing in his grip, Rose makes one last valiant effort, her hand straining desperately to close itself around his wrist or his shirtsleeve, maybe yank his arm closer, before he finally manages to pull her away, and she falls back with a solid _thump_.

"You unbelievable ass," Rose laughs, pushing her hair away from her face.

"Me?" the Doctor asks innocently. "I was just sitting here, minding my own business, when I was _assaulted_—"

"I'll show you 'assaulted'," Rose mutters under her breath, but she's still grinning.

"—and then you decided to crawl all over my body like it's some kind of sentient obstacle course!"

"Oi," Rose chuckles, moving to stand up, "It's not my fault you're all arms and legs and—"

And oh my, but she's suddenly noticing just how warm they both are, how his thighs are bracketed by hers, just how much they've been touching each other this whole time.

The Doctor swallows, his Adam's apple bobbing with the force of it. Their faces are quite close now, close enough that they could kiss, if they wanted. And Rose _does _want. So that's the next step of the plan. Rose does exactly that, leaning forward to press a kiss next to his lips, on his jaw, near his ear. She arches her hips into his and hears a soft breath escape him, watches in her peripheral vision as his eyes shutter closed. She does it again.

"I'm heading out," Ripley's voice calls from the lab, startling them both. The Doctor gives a jump beneath Rose. She claps her hand over his mouth before he can make any noise. Both of them freeze, adrenaline pumping through their veins. Rose waits with bated breath for the sounds of Ripley approaching.

"Have a good night!" Ripley shouts, still in the lab.

"Thanks, you too!" Rose replies. She is supremely pleased with how normal and not at all out-of-breath she sounds.

The lights in the lab go dim, clicking out one-by-one. The breakroom plunges into darkness. Only the telly remains on, casting shadow-shapes that flicker gently over the room, voices and music shockingly loud in the quiet. Rose listens closely for the sounds of the lab door closing and locking after.

Once Ripley is well and truly gone, the Doctor relaxes a little. He heaves a sigh of relief, his breath warm against Rose's palm. He looks up at Rose like he's asking her what happens next.

She moves her hand out of the way and replaces it with a kiss.

The Doctor is surprised, but he warms up to the idea quickly, his lips moving against hers. He almost seems perfectly content with the close-lipped kiss, languorous and slow as it is, but his grip on her hips tightens just a little bit and he arches into her just a fraction. The sensation makes Rose's head swim and her flush with anticipation and want.

But it isn't enough. Rose doesn't need him calm and slow. She needs to see him out-of-control—needs to see him wanting her. Needs him to know how badly she wants him.

She hits the "off" button on the remote, cutting off the noise from the telly, and presses a hard kiss to the Doctor's mouth. Let him figure out the rest. He's a smart lad, after all.

* * *

Afterward, Rose's brain is mostly empty except for a very pleasant hazy hum. She hopes the same is true for him. Still, there's that nagging little thought cropping up, quieter than usual, but still there, as always: _What's next?_

"Are you, erm," she tries to ask amidst shuddering breaths. "How are you doing?"

"Dunno yet," is the muffled reply. "I'll tell you when my legs stop feeling like jelly."

Rose chuckles and kisses the side of his head.

* * *

They end up taking the train home, or as close to home as they can get, anyway. It's the first time Rose has been on a train in years; she decides this is to blame for why her legs are so much wibblier than usual, why she has to shift her stance and cling to the pole so much harder than before. It's certainly got nothing to do with the pleasantly warm soreness throbbing between her legs, certainly nothing to do with the source of said soreness.

Of course, the Doctor doesn't seem to be having any trouble staying upright at all, jelly-leg comments notwithstanding. Of course he doesn't.

Rose watches him, something in her stomach feeling almost unbearably fluttery and tender, but before she has a chance to say anything, the train gives a lurch, jostling her. She braces herself against the Doctor, one hand on the pole while the other snakes beneath his jacket, grabbing a fistful of shirt. Strictly for balance reasons, of course. It's got nothing to do with what they just did together, or the fact that she's so very glad to be on this train with him, or how very much she loves him, or the fact that she's planning to kiss him again.

(It's a good plan. Very good. The best she's ever had, possibly.)

Rose pushes onto her tiptoes to press a kiss to the Doctor's cheek. He's warm, beneath her lips; warm from blushing, and other things too, maybe. She kisses him again, lower, and again, on the corner of his mouth, and this time he turns his head to catch her lips with his. It's slower than the other kisses they've shared, and softer. Rose has to hide her face against his chest, after, to counteract the overwhelming sweetness swelling between her lungs.

There are still things they need to discuss, of course. Big things. Big, important things. But they can wait a little while longer.

Well, most of them can, anyway.

"I'm glad you're here with me," Rose says quietly, to the Doctor's chest.

He rests his head against hers, exhaling slowly. "Me, too."


End file.
